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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Gluten and Dairy Free Strawberry Ice Cream

This is the first of several strawberry recipes coming your way in the next few days. We went strawberry picking on the weekend, and came home with enough strawberries for me to make ice cream, jam, BBQ sauce, a pie, popsicles, and have leftovers to freeze for smoothies.
There's no comparing a freshly picked, local strawberry to one that's been sitting in the store for who knows how long. The local strawberry season is short, so I like to stock up when they're cheap and abundant. Frozen strawberries are great for smoothies, desserts, and simple sauces, where the mushy consistency of a thawed strawberry is an advantage.
I modified my ice cream recipe to add eggs, because the eggs add a creaminess to the mixture that is more like real ice cream. There is a high water content here, so the mixture would crystallize easily without them. If you use regular eggs, the mixture must be heated to an internal temperature of 160F before being cooled and then frozen. If you use pasteurized eggs, no heating is necessary. If you can't eat eggs, leave them out. The texture will be different, but not the flavour.

2- Pour into a metal pan (like a rectangular cake pan.) Chop additional five strawberries into small pieces and stir into liquid.

3- Place pan in freezer, stirring every 30 minutes or so until frozen. I move the finished ice cream to a freezer proof container with a lid, putting a piece of wax paper on top to keep it airtight.

Adding the eggs helps keep the mixture creamy. I liked the texture so much that I might actually start adding eggs to my coconut vanilla ice cream as well. There's still a high water content, so it can get hard in the freezer. Remove and let sit for about 10 minutes before serving to give it time to soften a bit. The texture is nice and smooth after a few minutes out of the freezer.